First Trim.ester Scree.ning

Check out the bebe! The pictures, of course, don't do it justice. It was having a grand time jumping and dancing around and not wanting to sit still for measurements. It really is amazing how much those little things move around inside of there. Based on today, I would say that we have another quite energetic little being in there; it is taking after Big Brother already!

Although we didn't do any screening when I was pregnant with Max, the predictive power of the technology available to us here has increased. The measurement of the nuc.hal translu.cency between 11 and 14 weeks gest.ation is very predictive of chromosomal abnormalities and some other problems. This is combined with a blood test to calculate an overall risk. Anyway, the nuc.hal translu.cency measured 1.3 mm, well below the cutoff for negative (2.5 mm). Also, the crown-rump-length was ~6.2 cm. That translates to a gestational age of approximately 12 weeks 5 days. Since we are at 12 weeks 3 days that is basically right on! The heart rate was 162 bpm. These are all indicators of a healthy baby. It is too early to tell the sex yet, but hopefully we can find that out at our Level II ultra.sound around 18 weeks gesta.tion.